SwingSet3

SwingSet3 + GraalVM native image

This project aims to produce platform-specific, native executable of the SwingSet3 application using the GraalVM native-image utility.

Gradle and Maven build scripts are provided for building the project. The GraalVM version used should be 21.1+ which supports compiling Swing application to native image.

Build pre-requisites

The GraalVM native-image page shows how to set up GraalVM and its native-image utility for common platforms. Gluon also provides some setup details for GraalVM native-image creation.

The GraalVM native-image utility will use the configuration files in graal-cfg/<platform>/META-INF/native-image folder to assist in the native image generation.

Gradle build tasks

To run SwingSet3 in standard JVM with Gradle, execute the run task:

gradlew run

To produce an executable uber jar, execute the uberJar task:

gradlew uberJar

and the uber jar can then be run with the java -jar command:

java -jar build/libs/SwingSet3-1.0-SNAPSHOT-no-deps-with-sources.jar

To produce a native executable, execute the nativeCompile task:

gradlew nativeCompile

The nativeCompile task would take a while to compile the application and link into an executable file. The resulting SwingSet3 executable file is:

build/native-image-linux/SwingSet3

(or if building on a Windows machine, the executable file is:

build\native-image-windows\SwingSet3.exe

)

which can then be run directly:

./build/native-image-linux/SwingSet3

(or if building on a Windows machine:

build\native-image-windows\SwingSet3.exe

)

Maven build tasks

To compile and run SwingSet3 in standard JVM with Maven, execute the compile then exec:exec tasks:

mvnw compile
mvnw exec:exec

To produce a native executable, execute the package task:

mvnw package

The package task would take a while to compile the application and link into an executable file. The resulting SwingSet3 executable file is:

target/native-image-linux/SwingSet3

(or if building on a Windows machine, the executable file is:

target\native-image-windows\SwingSet3.exe

)

which can then be run directly:

./target/native-image-linux/SwingSet3

(or if building on a Windows machine:

target\native-image-windows\SwingSet3.exe

)

The above package task also produces an executable uber jar. The uber jar can then be run with the java -jar command:

java -jar target/swingset3-1.0-SNAPSHOT-no-deps-with-sources.jar

Caveats on Native Image

On Linux platform, such as Ubuntu, the resultant native executable is a single file, SwingSet3, of about 75MB in size (by GraalVM 22.0.0.2 version). Running the ldd command on it will show all the dynamic libraries (.so) from standard library paths required by the executable at runtime:

$ ldd build/native-image-linux/SwingSet3
    linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffd23575000)
    libX11.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libX11.so.6 (0x00007fd5d2fd8000)
    libXrender.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXrender.so.1 (0x00007fd5d2dce000)
    libXext.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXext.so.6 (0x00007fd5d2db9000)
    libXi.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXi.so.6 (0x00007fd5d2da7000)
    libstdc++.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007fd5d2bc5000)
    libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007fd5d2a76000)
    libfreetype.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so.6 (0x00007fd5d29b5000)
    libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007fd5d2999000)
    libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fd5d2976000)
    libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fd5d2970000)
    libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fd5d2955000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fd5d2763000)
    libxcb.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007fd5d2737000)
    /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fd5d810b000)
    libpng16.so.16 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpng16.so.16 (0x00007fd5d26ff000)
    libXau.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXau.so.6 (0x00007fd5d26f9000)
    libXdmcp.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007fd5d26f1000)
    libbsd.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbsd.so.0 (0x00007fd5d26d7000)

On Windows 10 platform, the resultant native image consists of multiple files: the executable SwingSet3.exe, plus a set of .dll files, and some font config files from the JDK are also included. Here are their structure after a Gradle (or Maven) native-image build:

build\ (or target\)
    native-image-windows\
        lib\
            fontconfig.bfc
            fontconfig.properties.src
        awt.dll
        fontmanager.dll
        freetype.dll
        java.dll
        javaaccessbridge.dll
        javajpeg.dll
        jawt.dll
        jsound.dll
        jvm.dll
        lcms.dll
        sunmscapi.dll
        SwingSet3.exe

Many .dll files in the above native-image-windows folder are not needed at runtime (at least not by the SwingSet3 application) so they can be removed, resulting in the final build folder structure for Windows:

build\ (or target\)
    native-image-windows\
        lib\
            fontconfig.bfc
            fontconfig.properties.src
        awt.dll
        fontmanager.dll
        java.dll
        jvm.dll
        SwingSet3.exe

All files in the native-image-windows folder (including the lib sub-folder) must stay together in the same structure, with names unchanged after the build, so that the SwingSet3.exe native executable can be run successfully in Windows.